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 of Paraguay, descended the river from Asomption, and on the 11th of June planted the Spanish flag on the old site. He endeavored to people this city with Gruarani Indians, massacred the Querandis who had revolted against him, and died in 1584. Don Francisco de Zarate, chevalier of the Order of Santiago, and governor of Buenos Ayres, confirmed the foundation of the city by an act of the 10th of February, 1594, and began to construct the fortifications which are now seen on the bank of the river. In 1620, the government of Asomption was reduced in Paraguay and Buenos Ayres became the chief city of the second government established in La Plata. In 1629, a royal decree united into a single viceroyalty the hitherto separate governments of Buenos Ayres, of Asomption, and the provinces of Charcas, Potosi, and Cochabamba. In 1640, the Portuguese carried their arms into the La Plata, but after many contests, stretching over many years, a treaty was made in 1785, by which the domain came into the possession of Spain definitively.

Until the eighteenth century there was but one viceroyalty in South America, that of Peru, which extended from the western to the eastern shore, but on account of the inconveniences of so large a territory, Spain created another in New Grenada in 1718, a capitancy in Caraccas in 1734, another in